Saturday, August 18, 2012

... Support and Sympathy of Friends and Family as President Obama Is Re-Elected in Landslide Victory over Republican Ticket (AP 11/2/12). As Predicted More Than a Year Earlier by an Obscure Yet Eerily Prescient Blogger in Raleigh NCThe story begins for this Ass Press reporter (but I DO have an ASSOCIATE two-year degree) in the hospital last summer while watching what "The Blogman" called a teevee Circus Spectacular of some kind, identified by other people as "The Republican Presidential Primaries." I had to agree that with clown-characters like Mittens, Newt, and T-Paw--How could it be? Before this, he had long-predicted a lopsided win for Obama's re-election ... to unbelieving friends and family. They even made little circles with their forefingers around their temples, whatever that means.

On his deathbed, The Blogman (as he called himself though he hadn't been at it for a "slothful year") screamed in painful prophecy to any pretty nurse who'd listen:

With his faithful Beanie Baby, "'Smoochy' the Frog" (Ty.inc.)***--which in delirium situ he insisted on calling Froggie the Gremlin--some medical whatnot, and caring Friends & Family, the Blogman pulled through, but was now reduced to street-corner perorations not unsimilar to those above ... cane in one hand and Smoochy/Froggie in the other, often shaking the latter in the faces of innocent passersby. Unbelievers all.

As winter came and went away, as do we all, the outbursts continued, directed at anyone who might listen ... but in no way believe. When pretend-human-being W.M.F.T. Romney (his words) confirmed himself consumptivePresidential Nominee for the revived Know-Nothing Party(his words)--the Obama-landslide rants reached ELEVEN on the Spinal Tap scale. The world standard, I take it.

Then, in mid-August, the announcement of Rand Paul Ryan as Romney's running mate was almost too much to bear for the still-recovering Blogman. Paroxysms of jolting JOY and rattling Rapture threw him into a diabetic coma, lasting at least several minutes on the couch

How SWEET it is ...Obama landslide ... George's Prodigal has fucked the dog screwed the pooch for good ... menage a' deux ... another crook and liar ... caught in the act ... Ayn Rand rampant ... Magic Twanger plunked en finale' ... Obama landslide ...And so it was to be, and is, a couple of months later, on this day, Nov 2nd 2012. (Ass Press)

***The Blogman claims to have been sophomore frat-boy Pledgemaster over Ty Warner's pledgedom during his freshman year in college ... which was no doubt the reason that the future Ty(coon) "Toy-Boy" Warner dropped out. [see Mosteller Musings soon about this] ************

Monday, August 6, 2012

Here is Justice "Tony Guns" in his youthful gangbanger days sporting a longer coif, and wearing a single, distinctive and quite becoming earring in the LEFT ear, which I'm told is the secret double-reverse signum of underworld connections (see last post), perhaps even unto the depths of Hell. Or not.

But he sure does love himself them fararms ... and that good ol'-timey Second Amendment of the US Constitution, by which he "justifies" his love. Sweet. Known only to intimates: the mobster-benchman has it tattooed where his tramp-stamp would go. A riteof passage in the organization. And which, lucky for us Patriots, he believes gives us the right to "bear arms" in a delightfully unfettered way.

Now as a "Strict Constructionist" (aka "entomologist") in interpreting the Constitution, he had to eliminate from his decision-making the possibility that the "Framers," or whoever, were NOT thinking of "bear arms" as a noun-noun double morpheme compound substantive as in "bear arms"--that is, weapons to kill bruin-kind (family Ursidae), such ursidicide being a common pastime in Colonial America, especially in Philadelphia, where these quaint gunslingers were meeting. But bears of several species (not including the Koala, which hadn't been discovered yet) can be dangerous for colonial campsites, and pose a threat to New-Nationhood. Proper weaponry guaranteeing Ursine lethality.would have been required of all. Big long guns. Most antebellum colonists had them anyway. Did the 2ndA restrict firearms to bear-musketry only?

Here's the Original (spelling and all), consisting of one syntactically awkward sentence that "originalist" Justice Mafiabagman had to deal with--tattooed, as I said, slightly north of his hindquarters and tail, making it prima facie difficult for ready reference:

A well regulated Militia, being neceffary to the fecurity of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear armf, shall not be infringed.

Even thefpelling is difficult, as you can see, the Framers being inodinately fond of the alternate orthographic form of "s" (technically, the fistula) at the time. It's an effete rightward slanting "f"-like grapheme (as in parfum, not to be confused with parsum, which is not a word anyway), whose type key the Blogman had installed in the keyboard device for just such an occasion. A curious but meaningless fact: an unusually high number of Founding Fathers had a lisp, or developed one soon after the Convention ... as would we all.

These minutiae are important to an "originalist" interpreter of our Founding Document and its first ten amendments, because there may be even more. The "textualists" represent the other related approach in the (coinage alert) "Constrictcunnalinctionist" family of two. This branch also sanctifies the words-as-writtenepistome, but unlike the "originalists" these seditious folk allow for some semantic evolution to be taken into account. Patriotic "originalists" (aka Tea-Baggers) will have none of that. They want to "figure out" what the "Framers" were "actually" THINKING at the "time" they were "actually" WRITING the "words."

Thus the Devil was appropriately in the details for Mr. Justice Uuderworld because he had to come up with the RIGHT (haha) Opinion as he consulted the oft-disputed 2ndA, as nobody affectionately calls it yet. He was deciding a case involving a law prohibiting home hand-gun possession in Wash DC, Difficult. But Antonin came through. This Associated Press headline and lead say it all:Gun-Crazy*** Justice Scalia Writes Demented Majority Opinion That Strikes Down DC Anti-Hand-Gun Law Based On Delusional Constitutional Right To Bear Armf Joining Scalia in the 5-4 Decision Banning the Banning of the Ownership of Handguns in the Home Were the Other Barely Humanoid Members of SCOTUS [?]: Roberts, Kennedy, Thomas, and What's-His-Name (AP6/22/12)

It would be hard to make these things up. Anyway, Justice Scalia's "originalist" interpretation began by eliminating something SO elementary that it was beyond even my ken, and barbie's too. Bear armf? thought Scalia, trying to think the thoughts of the great Thinkers-up of the thing. Could the Framers have been thinking of the severedfore-limbs of the Ursine-kind?As weapons? To CLUB a Redcoat into submission perhaps, after a soldier's ammunition ran out or gun jammed? Broken bayonet? Might work, till spoilage set in. Heavy enough. Lots of bears around then. The claws would surely be effective. But noooo, too messy for fussbudget aristocrats like Adams, Hamilton, and esp Dolly Madison, who I've heard wrote most of the Constitution. Problem is: never happened. And the OED cites no instance of "armf" used for bear parts.

Then the revelation. He had been painstakingly parsing the ideation of each word separately, but now he remembered the "and" preceding "bear armf" and ... Epiphany. "Tony Guns" knew right then that he was on to something.

*** Saw Gun Crazy, the movie, at the old Avalon theater (q.v. in several archival posts) in 1950 on a "double-bill" (yes, Virginia, TWO movies for a quarter) and tried unsuccessfully to reach and relate it to Annie Oakley and Hoot Gibson . Re-saw it recently on TCM. Wonderfully trashy/campy noir with moral that gunf make good people into killers. Tsk, tsk, a truth for the ages.
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Sunday, July 22, 2012

Three things about this picture of 6-yr-old Veronica Moser-Sullivan, resident of Aurora, Colorado:

1) She's missing a front tooth (I sympathize);

2) She loves ice cream;

3) She's dead;

4) She was killed by Justice Antonin Scalia.

Now, three questions directed to this so-called A.Scalia, by all accounts with a full set of teeth and breathing in and out.

1) You are quite fond of the 2nd Amendment, as are we all, because it was after all a pretty good law for its time, and you like the "for-its-time" thing don't you, being what they call a Constitutional "originalist" or something. True?

2) Qualifying as an audible life-form, you were appointed to the SCOTUS Corporation, owned by Ronald Reagan at the time, based on your fondness also for the Tridentine Latin Mass (sponsored by a famous chewing-gum company) and GUNS. Right?

3) As one of the known mobsters on the Court, you are sympathetic to the proliferous gun-lobbies and to organized crime, who reject any kind of Federal regulation of guns and ammunition of any kind. Including assault rifles. Yes?

4) Your ties to the Mafia are not only indicated by #3, but also by your last name, your religion--clandestine rites in a dead language--and the Soprano-perfect sign you are wont to use when annoyed by reporters asking about these biased decisions:

This photo captures the secret gesture midway between first cupping your hand under the chin and full-out FLICK of hand and fingers, does it not? The visual mummery represents the underlying code in Italian "Ba(va) Fungule(fan culo)"--meaning literally in English "Go find an ass (your own, to fuck, implied). Abstracted meaning, of course: "Fuck you." And Mr. Scalia, you would be up on your Latin/Italian roots, based on your old-timey Roman church experience, would you not? ***

5) You are responsible for the murder of this young lady, Veronica Moser-Sullivan, who while doubtless finishing her dental-friendly ice cream and waiting for The Dark Knight Rises to appear on the screen of her local Cinema ... he did. Movie cancelled for Veronica. New front tooth mooted.

This innocent was slaughtered by an angry white man in a black suit carrying an AK-47 assault rifle--a Weapon of War. Unless this was a SOLDIER run amuck, suffering from PTSD, i. e. Particularly Terrible Something or other, thinking in a crazed state he was firing at terrorists in Saskatchewan--you might be off the hook. Right? But no ... he WAS a civilian! Because of your gaseous gun decisions, and in particular your fatal deconstuction of the 2nd Amendment, the shooter possessed a weapon of war, "legally." You put it in his hands. The AK-47 was the ONLY way that the shall-be-nameless boy could have killed and wounded the incredible amount of people he did. Is this not all true Justice Scalia?

Saturday, July 21, 2012

Honesty All But Destroys Governor Romney's Presidential CampaignPresumptive nominee'sadmission of being WRONG costs him GOP major support. Primary battle now shifts in favor of ...

Richard Nixon ... Gotcha. Now you must adMIIT to being totally and completely fooled by my fake/true/fake headline, Or not. But boy-golly it's a tangled web, as Somebody once said, or said was said. The WRONGITY for Romney pere, as it turns out, was about the VIETNAM WAR--he discovered he was against it, In 1965. A Republican fercryinoutloud..What. A. Guy. Cost him the Presidency in 1968 and his (incumbent) Michigan Governorship later that year, if he'd been running for it. .

Headlines like the one above reflected the Gov's changed attitude about THE war of our time as early as mid-year 1965, when by now the former auto executive and Michigan CEO appeared already to be the man to run against LBJ in '68. But he had zero foreign policy experience. He decided, alone among presidential hopefuls, to take a look, 'Nam-wise. Result? "I was FOR, but NOT ANYMORE or some such dramatic stuff. Before TET, Cronkite. An epiphany.

He saw the shambles--the literally and etymologically abattoir of bloody failure of US intervention--and declared the so-called "progress" bullshit. Or something like that in Mormonese When he got face-to-face with the Generals directly in charge of the Vietnamese killing fields ... he knew. Their so-ridiculous-sounding-now protestations of "light at the end of the tunnel"--standard issue phraseology memorized from the Officer's Code, or something, as it is today--cut no shit with the Michigan/Mormon Elder. And he said as much, on record, in late-'67:

When I came back from Vietnam, I'd just had the greatest brainwashing that anybody can get. I no longer believe that it was necessary for us to get involved in South Vietnam to stop Communist aggression in SE Asia. [No kidding; this is how a lot of grownups really talked back then]

Ah, soooo ... the Brainwashing. Sinatra's Manchurian Candidate was still fresh in every brainwashed American mind, as it should have been. But Frank got George W. (hmmn) in big trouble when all of this soundbite baggage concatenated up into the newslines of 1968. And the Primaries.

The Chicken-Hawks of the GOP got fugacious ("fug-" to fly; flee; ult. fr. Latin fugere "fuck you"). Yes, they abandoned him in flocks, and prez hopes fluttered away for one of the first unlikely doves, lo unto Zolub, of the anti-Vietnam-war cause.

Naive; i.e. HONEST ... George W. (hmmn) Romney was NOT a dumb guy. He SAVED American Motors Corp,(irony alert) a strugglingDetroit auto company on the verge of bankruptcy after buying out the venerable Nash and Hudson brands. He innovated. My first legal motorcaraage, in fact, was via our family's AMC/Hudson Rambler "Cross Country" model which was CEO Romney's precursor to the modern mini-SUV! No kidding. Great car. It came with--guess what-- a built-in dog-carrier rack on the rear top of the little wagon,

No, not a dumb guy--later, Mitt's father had done a good enough job as Gov of a difficult state to be elected for three 2-year terms. Guess whose first legal ballot was for George to serve the second of those terms? Here's the headline:

Noted Future Blogperson Casts His Vote for Romney in 1964 Gubernatorial ElectionGov Wins by Single Vote

Monday, July 2, 2012

Take a look and a double-take at the following post****** down the page, written March 2010 just after Congress passed the Affordable Care Act, which somehow was replaced with the puzzling term "Obamacare." Here's what you'll shortly discover: it couldhave been written today! I swear, it's la plus ca change with a vengeance, almost literally. It's as if you and me and the world haven't MOVED that much in the last couple of years. Like woo-woo suspended animation. I expect an alien to burst from my belly any minute. Geraldo Rivera maybe/ Ouch.

So I'm recycling the "All Aboard" post #212 of 3/25/10, unchanged, to make the point above, ...and another point or two about THIS election year--namely, that the Democrats' strategy should remain unchanged as well(that is, what little there was OF it back in 2010).. SCOTUS, whatever that is, has made the President a WINNER again, and it's still all about the Kids. With Health Care reform now firmly in place, parent's and grandparents, and aren't we all, are going to vote for The Man who did it--who assured their progeny of health coverage no matter pre-existing conditions; of coverage to age 26 under the family's insurance; of coverage for themselves for life (no "caps") to see it all happen.. All this is among other good stuff like preventive care and more--the devil has NEVER been in the details. i.e. the specific ACA provisions, for the clear majority (60-80%) of the Electorate--they're for the good stuff that Team Obama can now put on sale with all-to-hell impunity. Republicans, or, technically, oxygen users, ain't got nothin' ...

Or ... sort of continuing from last post, "Go for it"--said President Obama to Republicans (and Blue Dog Dems subrosa) who would fashion this year's off-year election campaigns [now Presidential and down-ballot] on REPEAL of the new Health Care Act. His version of Clint Eastwood's "Make my day." Further along in his Iowa City presser today [3/25/10] (still here) it was the even more genteel challenge, "Be my guest."

Mr. Obama can afford to be smugly magnanimous in victory [now again this new one] because he knows he's a winner, not only in this recent battle. but most likely now in several wars to come. Why?--because in this and future legislative struggles over social justice the lately extreme-right-wing G.O.P. along with the forever-reactionary, small-state southern Democrats will be RUNNING AGAINSTLITTLE KIDS. No win. Battle lost. [Here I was sadly mistaken.Republicans cleaned clock around the country in the 2010 elections.]

First of all, the forces for progressive change will be aided by--to our shame, really--the "band-wagon" effect. A check of the polls reveals that curious fact about human nature: immediatelyafter the HCR bill had passed, more people were for it. The only difference?--it was now a winner [like the SCOTUS victory] What had been disfavored by a slight majority of the American people only a few days earlier was now favored by a slight majority. [SAME DAMN THING ... last week. Polls already show a "bump."] Evidently, several millions of those originally opposed had set aside the time to read all 3000 pages of the bill ... and were convinced otherwise. Yeah, that's it. But whatever the case, I'm sure these numbers will grow.

For, more importantly, it all comes down to the children--their protection and well-being. The winning side. As for the new health-care program, Republicans on the campaign trail are wildly deluded that "Repeal it and start over"--John Boner's mantra--is going to have any resonance whatsoever with American voters. Correct me, but I believe parents and grandparents make up a sizable voting block. This formidable bunch of ballot-casters (including me) in November are going to vote FOR allowing insurance companies to again deny coverage to kids with pre-existing conditions? Fuhgeddaboudit. Or voteAGAINST children being covered under their parent's policy till age 26? No way. There's even a further incentive for parent-minded citizens in the same bill-now-law re-passed yesterday: it was revised to include a major expansion of the college-loan program. [Again, the down-ballot Electorate didn't buy it in 2010, but it was never really sold aggressively. Still, the People loved the ACA in detail, but somehow not in general. Brainwashed by the Teabaggers, somebody said.]

Other challenges to the status quo ante? Other changes "you can believe in" as the Obama campaign put it? Well, "Yes we can." The re-invigorated Obama administration along with the newly-victorious progressive forces in Congress [Whew, boy] will again have the kids on their side. (more)
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Thursday, June 28, 2012

The Blogman got misty. But Frogman the Gremlinesque appeared PLUNK and began borboryglating about no Public Option ... Big Med/Pharma still in control ... millions UNcovered till 2014 ... Medicaid sorely wounded ... ending gravellyly with:"Still ain't no Universal froggin' HealthCare!"

Another PLUNK of his TWANGER and it was good riddance to Froggy on this joyous day--Caloo! Calay! to beamish people everywhere today! The Jabberwock is dead. Who didst wield the Vorpal Sword of Justice? ... 'T'was Sir John of Roberts at the Court of Supreme.
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Though spectacularly ignored by Republicans time and time again, let's all be aware of an obvious Truth--

Progress => Future => History and conservative/reactionary creatures are always on the wrong side of history. Sentient human being Chief Justice John Roberts was aware, despite his public persona, and that's why he swooshed the Court into the future ... and made history for himself.

Fuggedabout the casuistry of his "majority" opinion--he's got his ass covered there--John Roberts was thinking history. And of the legacy of a Court forever named after him.
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Wednesday, June 27, 2012

Speaking of the Fifth Dimension, TMZ reports that a new political party is being formed by exasperated Dems and GOPers, and joined by disaffected defectors from both the Green Party and the old Greenback Party (here).

Its proud Mascot is none other than Froggy the Gremlin, for obvious reasons. He has a green back. And even better, he's green just about all over, as the Green Party hopes to be These latter folk are environmentalists too, and he would represent not only the order Anura.that is most notoriously disappearing rapidly in the wild, but stand for all endangered species.

As a quasi-life form, Froggy;s soft-plastic head and mouth can be manipulated to utter in a gravelly voice the Party's official rallying cry "Hiya,kids, Hiya!" and the Party's slogan "I will, I will, I will!"-- ventriloquisticly. (Just as it was done in low-tech close-up on the Smilin' Ed's Gang TV show.) As a bonus, the word frog descends from the Proto-Indo-European root *Vro-, meaning to "jump" or "hop"--just as these ideologue defectors to a new party are doing.. Moreover, the Anurae are amphibious--able to live (-bious) in two (amphi-) worlds at once. Like maybe Libertarianism and Socialism.

The ensign or banner for the party is, no surprise, the good ol' Greenback ... blown up to appropriate size. But here the founding fathers of the new party, in their contrarian and alethristic wisdom, chose a legal-tender THREE DOLLAR BILL in black onbrown ... a Brownback, if you will (despite it's cringe-worthy association with a certain deranged state Governor) ... dating from, apropos of the movement, Revolutionary times--

A pretty thing. It's a 1776 "Continental" from back in the day and following when paper currency was au courant, so to speak, printed by whatever Government and any old bank or corporate entity that wanted to--you had to trust 'em it was good. Monetary policy, paper-wise, was not monopolistic, nor boullion-based (my frenchy-frog favorite), though silver and gold WERE minted and always of course face-value trustworthy. No stinkin' gold or silver STANDARD yet (or Federal Reserve) behind what was later called "specie." This suited the original Greenback Party just fine through its beginnings during the Civil War and after ... up to its official founding in and around the economic recessional periods of the 1870s and 1880s. Keep the money flowing, the Greenbackers said ... keep it "current"--as "currency" logically entails. They were proleptic Keynesians without knowing it ... and as I see it.

Sunday, June 24, 2012

"The more things change,, the more they stay the same."--translated from the old French adage leading off my #232 on "collateral damage"--i.e. slaughter of the innocents-- from the skies. When will we learn? When will we stop? Scroll down to my last post of 2010 and you see there's hardly a gap. The "meme chose" of civilian casualties in the Middle-East murder zones goes on ,,, and on. Did I hear in a daze someone say something about ... ten more years?

I promised a return at summer solstice. Well, the sun "stood still" this last Wednesday ... and POOF the Daily Mosteller (perforce with Weekly added) is back, along with its evil culture-grubbing twin, Mosteller Musings. Only a year late--a year pretty much wasted on health issues that I'm still getting over ... and as a result: medical-bill-issues that I may NEVER get over (see "headline" #2 below).

Would that the big lacuna in my bloggery were a kind of Rip Van Winkle experience for me ... and life on this planet as we know it.. After a couple of years of peaceful sleep, hey, we wake up--or "plunked" back to reality with Froggy the Gremlin's magic twanger if you will--to a world where the current-event headlines we read are less like the gruesome realities of my re-inaugural DMW #232 ... and more like the following:

US Involvement in Middle-Eastern Wars OverTroops and treasure home after 5000 deaths and thousands more injured and maimed for life ... trillions of dollars wasted ... leaving behind insurgent and civilian deaths in the hundreds of thousands ... OR

Health Care Reform Affirmed Full coverage now for 30 million uninsured ,,, children with pre-existing conditions, college-age young people, the elderly, and all other Americans now covered only at the whim of their employers ...OR

Economy Back On Track Under President's Jobs Bill millions of workers building,/repairing roads and bridges and schools (oh my) ... workers getting fair minimum wage ,,, women's paychecks equal to men's for equal work ... police, firefighters, teachers back on the job with federal subsidies ... unemployment down ... OR

Civil Liberties Assured Congress and the Courts end discrimination against all ethnic groups, esp "illegals" ,,, other marginalized citizens including gays and WOMEN, esp the latter's reproductive rights ... OR

Social Justice For All "Safety-net" intact for the unemployed, elderly, poor, infirm, disabled ... Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security secure and strengthened ... OR

US Congress Non-Partisan Accord Law-making bodies across the country ... federal and state legislatures ... passing non-partisan laws in cooperation with their Chief Executive ... White House, Capital Hill, Supreme Court put aside party politics and agree to legislation promoting General Welfare of country as mandated by Constitution .. OR.

Obama Overwhelming Choice for Re-Election Apollingmajority of Americans cite the President's outstanding record (see "Long List ... with Citations" here) ... taking into account the fact that he inherited a nation laid waste by over a decade of Republican malfeasance at home and abroad ... electorate prefers current occupant of WH to what some refer to as an "empty vessel" and a "gaseous state" ... OR

Republicans Revealed: Sane, Smart, Caring Human Beings ... BUT

Nooooo: None of the Above ... quite. Lots to talk about, In fact, it's almost like I never left. If anything, 2012 seems eerily deja vu 2008, when this blog was launched, and when you interpret the underlying issues in the quasi-fake headlines above. Anyway, POOF the DMW magically returns to do its take on current affairs with an edge, a twist, a smile--like the one on the face of the deceptively benign "Silver Age" middle-incarnation of Mr Myxyzptlk pictured above. No cigar yet. He's back in 4D space-time here, but sitting in mid-air, defying natural laws as usual and ready to confound, confuse, confront, with his other-dimensional skills.

So too, this blog (whatever that means)--one among many in the vast punditsphere of amateur internet journalism. Humbling, but expect no deference here. I'll attack anything that moves ... the wrong way, that is, as I see it.. But always I hope putting on a measure of Hamlet's "antic disposition." Playing the Trickster--irony, paradox, satire, ridicule, and so on ... good fun. After all, you're invited to sit down, as the masthead motto says, to a mess/meal of memes AND mummery.. It's a daily served up weekly. Makes perfect sense in the fifth dimension. (Full disclosure: at this stage of life, I couldn't possibly keep it up every day, anyhow, Oops.)************

Monday, June 18, 2012

Mr Myxyzptlk will always be my favorite supervillain. Against Superman, he don't need no stinkin' Kryptonite, because he could simply disappear at will--POOF--back to his alternate existence in ... the FIFTH DIMENSION! ... well beyond Superman's space-time universe. Yet he could "virtually" cause all sorts of mischief, and, worse, he couldn't be stopped!

Using his superior abilities. the Man of Steel would reliably prevail over brainy supervillain Lex Luthor and others of his 3D ilk, hauling them off to some good ol' 4D jail-time. But his powers, we might say, are merely super-- i.e.extraordinary human attributes of strength, speed, and flight. That's right: Superman's ability to fly was on occasion "explained" in the early Action Comics as a super-benign "side-effect" of certain differences in gravity, atmosphere, blah, blah, between his home planet and Earth (no indication e.g. that Kryptonians had such powers). Normal, terrestrial humans of Olympic ability can "fly" for instance at a little over seven feet; Superperson Clark Kent, however, simply raises the bar quite a bit. X-ray vision aside, he is after all a completelyhumanoid.ET or ALF, subject like us all to forth-dimensional natural law and its vicissitudes, plot-wise, including the ultimates: love and death. Not so for Mr. Myxyzptlk..

In the late 40s and early 50s when I bought Superman comics at the Corner Store--an urban forerunner of today's convenience store, whose merchandise included those pre-pubescent-male essentials of comic books, candy bars, and squirt-guns---thirty-two pages of fun cost a dime. And Mr. M at the time was equally modest in appearance. I was never acquainted with his futuristic avatar pictured above--love the in-your-face cigar-puffing though.. Here's the Myxyzptlk I grew up with in what is called "officially" the Golden Age of comics:

Supernerd! A daunting uber-villain, indeed. But that was the genius-part of Mr. M's first incarnation, now sadly gone. His Disneyesque appearance belied his almost unlimited powers and sometimes malicious nature, making him all the more sinister ,,, and most interesting. Some nice comic irony for a kid back then. And this super-imp could daunt. Through pure mischief and mostly harmless mayhem, he would annoy, confuse, and confound our superhero with some sort of incomprehensible interference that defied physical laws. ... before HE was "tricked" into returning to his 5D .world.

Not to get all mythic on you, but Mr. Myxyzptlk epitomizes the Trickster archetype ... as in Norse Loki, Anglo-Saxon Unferth (in Beowulf, and btw in my doctoral dissertation), Prometheus, Br'er Rabbit, a bunch of others that you can think of, and my nostalgic favorite: Froggy the Gremlin, from the radio and then TV program, Smilin' Ed's Gang. When it was time for hijinks on that kiddie show, after a story or a clip from an "old" western, old Ed would summon up Froggy with this stentorian call: "Plunk your magic twanger, Froggy!" And somehow POOF the squat little grotesquely bug-eyed gravely-voiced frog-puppet (no Kermit he) would appear (imagination-wise on radio) ... in a self-made cloud of smoke as he puffed away on a giant CIGAR stitched to his puppet-lips! See first picture above. Coincidence? I think not. Anyway, hilarity would ensue as Froggy did his magic mischief--I remember the late, late can't-hold-a-sneeze comic Billy Gilbert as a frequent guest bearing Froggy's brunt of practical jokes. Another plunk of his magic twanger, however (you are free toutilize this expression in other, creative ways, as us kids were wont to do) ... and POOF he was gone. As if to another dimension.***

Speaking of creativity, you've got to give credit the Action Comics guys for anticipating some of the current quantum-physical fooferah about extra dimensions (It's now up to eleven!) and multiverses of one kind or another. Of course they used this bit of science esoterica for good fun, but what fascinated me as a kid was that it severely challenged not just our hero's superpowers but his common-sense, intellect, and even identity, much like the crazy world of quantum theory does for us today. This antagonist was not only invincible, but in ways that the super-guy couldn't understand. (Okay ... he's non-common-sensically super, but his powers are enhanced anthropic attributes [again, aside from Xray vision], otherwise we would have a had timeidentifying with him as an archetypal hero ,,, as potentially one of us. Remember, his flying ability is sort of explained as extra-good high-jumping.)

"I thought I was the only one who could fly?" says the Man of Steel questioning his very identity in his first encounter with Mr. Myxyzptlk--in his oriiginal supernerd guise--when he apparently jumps to his death out of a window.. (I had to "wiki" this to get an example--plaudits to those rich folk who saved their old comic books--because it's been a long time.) Using his 5D powers, the little guy wreaks other mischief on Metropolis and its citizens including getting fatally hit by a truck and then shockingly coming back to life ... giving the Mayor a donkey's voice ... scattering important documents all over town, Pranks. Great kid-stuff, In fact, he lets slip to superman at one point that he is a court-jester by trade, back on his 5D home planet--explaining everything.

Of course Mr. Myxyxptlk has to be "vincible" in some way for Superman ultimately to prevail. Well, here it is (or was) ,, he'sstupid. Or at base terminally childish .. and why our super-smarter hero can always plunk the little guy's twanger and outwit him back to his fifth dimension world for--get this--a minimum of 90 days. Time to prepare the next issue, presumably..Here'sthe trick: Mr. M inadvertently reveals to Superman that if Mr.M hisownself pronounces or spells or writes his name backwards ...to wit: Kltpyyxym--then POOF he;s gone. And Superman in extremis is able to get him every time with some ludicrously simple stratagem. "How do you spell that name backwards again?"--I'm making that up, but the ploys were on that level, as I remember. And POOF once again The play of wit and language and magic ... great fun. (I'll get more to the point of my return in next post, but this is just such fun.)

***More on Chicago's radio & TV personality Sm+ilin' Ed McConnell and the the death of a childhood hero in Mosteller Musings, as soon as I get the little-sister blog cranked up again..
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U.S. Drone Policy: Standing Near Terrorists Makes You A Terrorist (5/29)

Yea and verily. It's good that America is still doing the Lord's work as best we can, (and as Yahweh bespoke directly unto Dubya) to wipe out as many of these little brown heathens before the Pashtunese killing fields are are in danger of being closed for good, and we have to look elsewhere ... Iran maybe? Good prospect.

For. lo. the Deity shall be behind us, aided by our courageous Chaplain-Corps-crusaders (almost 100% Judeo-Christian, amen), who can use the literal and fundamental Word of God to justify the killing--surely their favorite verse would be Jeremiah's ever-timely, cheer-leading, "Cursed be he who neglects the Lord's work; cursed be he who holds back his sword from blood" (Jer. 48:10). Happily, the Chaplains are able to chose from any number of other fine kill-the-infidel references in the Good Book. Beats the Koran all to Hell.

And back to the newsphoto--just look at how those devilish Talibs cum Qaeda disguise themselves..They look like little children, I know, but that can be soooo deceiving, considering the average height of these non-flesh-color people (to use the traditional Crayola distinction) that we kill around the world are well below the average height of the brave American soldier or airman (the latter too far away to distinguish clearly anyway). And they've all got those baby-faces. Remember the commie Vietnamese with their little-boy looks. And from the air ...? Well you just gotta shoot your rockets and "light 'em up." (more)
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